Wealthy Americans are building smaller luxury homes in grounds of their existing mansions for very practical reasons

Rich Americans are ditching their mansions and opting to build luxurious smaller homes for an easier lifestyle.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are each nan rage connected nan West Coast wherever homeowners person built them to prevention money connected upkeep, walk down their large houses to their children aliases moreover make immoderate money by renting them out.

Unlike a tiny house - which is portable - ADUs are built to codification and group connected a coagulated instauration pinch abstracted spaces for surviving and sleeping, pinch afloat plumbed bathrooms and kitchens.

Seattle mates Leesa Wright and Ben McAllister built an ADU conscionable 12 feet down their 1906 Craftsman location to person immoderate other abstraction for guests and to rent out, but ended up falling successful emotion pinch it.

'We primitively thought we were going to unrecorded successful nan beforehand house, until we yet walked into this one,' Wright told The Wall Street Journal.

Their 775-square-foot ADU called nan 'Alley Cat' costs $300,000 to build and has double-height ceilings, 4 skylights and metallic siding.

Wright's favourite portion of nan Alley Cat is their bath which features a wet-room ablution and monolithic bathtub. 

'When you only person 1 bathroom, you tin get nan champion tile, nan champion fixtures, nan champion windows,' Wright said. 

The mates precocious made a profit trading nan Alley Cat for $675,000 and their main location separately for $686,000. 

Sheri Koones, writer of About ADU: The Perfect Housing Solution, said she was inspired to constitute her book because truthful galore group kept expressing their liking successful building ADUs and making them their homes.

'It's not a excavation house, It's a spot for group to really live,' Koones told nan Journal.

'A batch of group told maine that they were going to put higher-end finishes successful [their ADU] moreover if they were going to rent it, because they mightiness unrecorded location themselves.'

California, Washington and Oregon have lifted restrictions that make it easier for homeowners to build nan houses.

Data from nan California Department of Housing and Community Development show complete 31,000 homeowners applied for ADU permits successful 2023, up from 7,000 successful 2018. 

Bruce Johnston, 83, grew tired of tending to his four-bedroom, 2,929-square-foot location successful Berkeley, truthful he and his hubby decided to build an ADU conscionable 60 feet from their home.

'As soon arsenic I began to spot nan location erupt from nan ground, I sewage tremendously excited, a operation of wonderment and disbelief, conscionable that this was wherever I was going to be,' Johnston told nan Journal.

'I consciousness for illustration I'm surviving successful immoderate rich | dude's penthouse.'

Johnston's girl and her partner moved into nan main house, and he moved into nan $1.2 million, 849-square-foot ADU.

'As I moved into my mid-70s, I really didn't want to do that anymore. But I thought, 'What tin I do?' I emotion nan neighborhood—and I didn't want to time off nan house. I've lived location for truthful galore years,' Johnston said.

His caller smaller location is group connected a actual slab foundation, has floating tile supported by earthquake-proof alloy columns, a patio and viewing deck, a countertop that divides nan room and surviving space, arsenic good as a free-standing fireplace that divides nan surviving abstraction and bedroom.

Their caller homes features luxurious finishes including each of their cabinets which are civilization designs from Italy.